


Frostbite (Loki & Peter)

by e_n_silvermane



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Loki may be OOC here, anyways it's worth a quick read, honestly they're both probably ooc but it's worth it trust me, i'm a feels writer as yall know, i'm not exactly selling the point here, if you like the idea of Loki & Peter being friends then this is the story for you!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 13:50:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18621913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_n_silvermane/pseuds/e_n_silvermane
Summary: The containment cell is white. Almost as pale as Loki's skin.Peter has been visiting him regularly, and his presence is enjoyable. It's almost like someone really... really cares about him. It's... interesting, to have a friend.And still, he grows weaker day by day, having his magic drained from him. One morning in particular leads to him losing the ability to project his human appearance--Peter is understandably concerned.





	Frostbite (Loki & Peter)

**Author's Note:**

> I know this wasn't any of the requests I was supposed to be working on. I know it's been a long time since I last posted. But I still hope you like it, and I promise I'll get those other ones out ASAP. Love you all so much! Enjoy <3

“Mister Loki?”  
Big, hazel-hued eyes blinked curiously at the Norse god’s sleeping form. Peter supposed it was somewhat early for him to be up, but then again, it was mid-morning, and Loki would usually be wide awake and spitting sarcasm.  
Usually.  
Now, though, he was sleeping quite soundly, curled up on his side like a cat. One of his hands lay outstretched near the edge of the bed Peter was peeking over, and it twitched slightly, trying to hold onto something invisible.  
On any other day, Peter would have been perfectly content to leave the god to his sleep and come back later. But there was something disconcerting about Loki being so sound asleep. Recently, he’d been more and more drained of energy, barely being able to hold himself upright. Sometimes he could hardly move his arms to playfully smack Peter’s shoulder when he made a stupid pun. When asked about it, he merely scoffed and said it was none of Peter’s business, and then he proceeded to collapse onto the bedspread, paler than the bleach-white walls of his room.  
Peter had brought the matter to Thor, who was also concerned, and together they consulted Tony and Bruce. All three of the adults agreed that Loki’s apparent weakness was a result of having his magic sapped from him, and though this was an understandable answer, it wasn’t exactly satisfactory. So, Peter worried.  
“Mister Loki, please wake up,” he begged quietly, daring to poke the god’s hand. The second he made contact with the pale skin of Loki’s palm, a roaring cold like a Niagara Falls of the Arctic struck through his arm, as if an icicle had just been sheathed in his palm. He leapt back from the bed and screamed a little, shaking out his hand vigorously, praying that the warmth would return to it—which it soon did. Peter’s hand was fine, the only exception being his now-reddened fingertips. He realized this and dared to breathe a quick sigh of relief, before noticing something even more frightening.  
Loki’s hand was turning a sickly bluish color, a frost hue so pale, he could have been mistaken for an ice statue. The color crackled and swirled up his arm, underneath his sleepshirt, creeping up to his neck, and Peter’s eyes grew wide as the blue deepened slightly on Loki’s face. It washed over him like a peaceful arctic tide, leaving with it ridges and almost scar-like raised lines.  
“Loki!” He shouted in a panic, and reached forward to shake his friend awake.  
The Norse god’s eyes flew open at the sound of Peter’s distressed yelp and immediately he sat bolt upright. “What is it? Peter, what—”  
Peter practically flew backwards in shock, pressing himself up against the far wall in fear of the new, glittering ruby eyes that now peered at him. “Your-your eyes! And your skin!”  
It was at this moment that Loki realized how pale and icy his hands were, and he felt his heart drop. “You need to leave.”  
“What?” If Peter’s eyes got any wider, they might have popped right out of his head. “I-something’s wrong with you, I’ll go get Thor, I’ll-somebody can help, I’m sure—”  
“No.” Loki’s voice was the only thing colder than his flesh, and it sent terrifying chills up Peter’s spine. “You will leave this room and you will never come back.”  
“You’re not freezing to death, are you? Wait! Are you sick? Is it contagious? Am I going to freeze too?” The brown haired spider-child slid easily into his habit of panicked rambling. “Please, Mister Loki, I don’t want us to die!”  
“Then get out!” Loki yelled, quivering with anger. “I am perfectly fine, but if you so much as lay a finger on me-”  
Peter looked at his hand, where his fingertips were still throbbing and now turning a darker red color. Loki’s gaze followed, and he nearly cried out in horror.  
“Go, get out. Get out now, before it gets worse, get help—tell them it’s frostbite, they’ll know who it’s from.”  
With a shaky “okay,” Peter was out the door and running down the hall, leaving Loki to fall backwards onto the bed, drained of energy.  
Of course, just when things were going nicely, the last of his magic had been seeped of him completely and he was no longer able to control his form. How unfair of them. Desperately, he tried to summon the wavering image of raven-colored hair, blazing green eyes and ivory skin once more to clothe himself, but it was to no avail. His night garments were still crisp around him. Every breath he drew smelled like the cold earth of a mountain top. Behind his fluttering eyelids, he couldn’t stop himself from picturing how frightened Peter was, the poor child having seen him in his true form.  
Oh, the expression Peter had. Loki winced.  
It was the face of fear, like those expressions of Asgardian children being told stories about the frost giants. The very same stories that made him feel sick then made him feel a thousand—no, a million—times worse now, because of the truth behind them. In his mind’s eye he could see parents checking under beds and in wardrobes for the ice monsters, submitting to their wailing child’s pleading demands… the older kids, who held up candles and told harrowing tales involving murder, cannibalism, and a host of other malicious deeds that surely the frost giants were the culprits of. Each terrified glance, each little voice filled with dread for the coming night echoed and loomed inside Loki’s skull until he just- couldn’t- think. Peter had looked that way. He had been utterly and completely horrified. As well he should be.  
Loki couldn’t possibly allow the boy to see him again—not that he wouldn’t run away screaming at the sight of him, the Jotunn, the ugly, cannibalistic murderer… But the worst thing was that he knew he’d miss Peter hanging around to watch movies and bring him lunch and even play chess with him. Loki’s hands trembled as he came to terms with having scared off the only person that would even bother to listen, to care. Were he not weak and becoming used to a semi-mortal existence, he would have been in a fit of anger, tossing things about the room and striding, pacing around, monologuing to himself about how it was best he be alone for good. Alone. He had grown up that way, was used to it, and it was his best advantage. And in the case of Peter’s patience and friendship, his downfall. He let a single tear fall from his eye at the thought of the spider-child, his friend, the one friend the universe had allowed him and then torn away from him with a sick laugh and no apology.  
Loki didn’t know how long he had laid there, forlornly remembering the nicest person he had known. But at some point during this mourning he had fallen asleep, and there was a voice in his ear sweetly telling him to wake, that he was alright.  
Peter was overjoyed when Loki’s new, ruby-hued eyes opened, blinked, and registered that he was there.  
“Hi Loki!” He waved his bandaged hand and smiled kindly. “Thor fixed it for me, don’t worry. I don’t think it was even that bad, my skin didn’t peel or anythi—hey, are you okay?”  
If Loki had had an ounce of magic left, he would have physically removed Peter from the room, but as it was he didn’t have a trace of it and could barely move to pull a bedsheet closer to his frigid body. Instead, he glared coldly and menacingly, disturbed by how naturally it came now. “Does it not frighten you, seeing me like this? Do you know what I am?”  
Peter thought a moment. “Hmm… no. But I know that whatever you are is pretty neat. Thor said it was your natural form!”  
“It is.” Loki’s voice was low and dark, and would have been terrifying to a child of perhaps 6 years, but Peter stood steadfast next to the bed, waiting for his friend’s next words. “But I am a monster. A frost giant. I am in the nightmares of every child of my homeland. I creep in the corners of their vision, I’m on every cold wind and in the hearts of dying crops, and I strike fear into those who see me like- like this. Like the monster I am.”  
Peter hummed. “Right. And that’s why I’m running away from you, screaming at the top of my lungs.”  
For a moment, Loki was silent, considering this. “You’re not terrified at the prospect of somebody who will literally kill you if you come into contact with them for too long?”  
“You know, I’ve had frostbite before. When I was little. I was stupid and ran around outside in the snow without gloves.” Peter paused. “If it’s frostbite I should be afraid of, well, sorry to disappoint you, but…”  
“And you’d want to be around someone as dangerous as that?” Loki snapped. “Naive though you might be, I thought you were smarter. Do you know how many Asgardians have died by the hands of frost giants? Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them, all by Jotnar with their treacherous, bleeding eyes and skulls of pure ice…” One of his pale blue hands flew up from his side to point at Peter. “You became friends with the Asgardian Loki, who possessed the emerald eyes and pale skin that you liked so much, and that was bad enough. Do not let yourself befriend another killer.”  
“Uh...huh.” Peter idly picked at the bandage on his hand. “So what I’m hearing from this is that you’ve been lead to believe that you are a horrible creature who is incapable of basic decency and undeserving of love. And that it’s my job to convince you otherwise!”  
Loki threw back his head onto the pillow with a heaving sigh and strain evident in his voice. “Do you listen to anything I say?”  
“Of course I do. I just choose to disregard it.” The brown-haired boy smiled dorkily.  
“You are one of the most insufferable human beings I have ever met.”  
“And yet,” Peter sighed dramatically, “I like hanging out with you. Why I even bother…”  
“Good question. Keep pondering it. I’m sure you’ll find an insufficient answer, pretend to explain it to me, and make your exit out of my life smoothly and without a hint of callousness.” It hurt to be rude to the spiderling, but Loki had trouble letting go of things, particularly the fact that he’d just spent an hour mourning the loss of his friend and was completely convinced that their relationship could never be the same again.  
“Ouch. That was cold.” A beat passed before Peter burst into a fit of laughter. “Ahaha, that was too good! Cold! That’s the best joke I’ve made all year!”  
It was only when he noticed that Loki wasn’t laughing (rather glaring indignantly—murderously?—...indignantly) that his giggles came to a slow, awkward silence.  
“So.” Peter sighed. “I suppose this is the part that requires some great speech about how you’re smarter than you know, stronger than you feel, all that stuff. I’d be happy to do that for you. Give me a second to think, though. I’m not great with words on the fly.”  
In response, the Jotunn made a scoffing tchh noise, not believing a word the spider-child said. It wasn’t that he couldn’t believe that he was more than what Odin told him he was—it was a choice. A very, very ill-weighed choice, but a choice all the same.  
Peter might as well have been a god of persuasion himself, though. With a few minutes, he could talk almost anybody out of anything, and while some people regarded him as annoying or oddly chatty, he discovered that it came in handy when he had to hand something in to his professor late or when his aunt May was just a little too concerned about the goings-on of Stark Tower. So began the battle of stubborn pride against beautiful persuasion.  
“Like I was saying,” Peter began, twirling a strip of gauze that had come undone from his bandaged hand. “When I was younger, maybe four or five, I ran outside in the snow on Christmas morning without a hat or gloves. I barely even stopped to put on my coat. I played around for a while before my parents even realized I was outside.”  
“Your parents,” Loki echoed. “You remember them?”  
“Bits and pieces.” Peter answered honestly, soulful eyes gazing towards the ceiling with a reverent haze over them. “I don’t have a lot of memories left. But I do remember that morning specifically, because I played sword-fight with icicles, built a mini snowman, made snow angels, and went back inside only to discover that my hands really, really hurt and looked mottled white and red, which made my mom scream and then-” Peter laughed breathily, “And then I was in urgent care, getting my hands and ears treated for frostbite. It was scary then, but I guess it’s easy to laugh at now. I had my head in the clouds when I was little.” There was a brief pause in his speech as he sat down on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb Loki’s position—the pale ivory man had propped himself up gingerly on the headboard like a mannequin, which couldn’t have been that comfortable, but it held his back straight up and he liked his regal posture. Peter absent-mindedly kicked at the dust cover on the bed frame before he realized the Norse god’s expectant stare.  
Go on, Loki’s ruby eyes intoned with a rare glitter of interest.  
“Another time I was playing with fireworks. Sparklers, actually. I struck one and it lit and I touched the flame at the tip--you can imagine how that went.”  
Indeed Loki could. As Peter continued, he imagined the exasperated worry the mother and father must have experienced, what with all of the curious little spiderling’s mishaps and injuries.  
“Tried to sweep up broken glass with my hand once. I—well,” The boy exclaimed at Loki’s incredulous expression. “I didn’t think it would hurt much if I did it gently! And there was the time after that with the potato peeler...man, I think that was the first time Aunt May nearly fainted…!”  
“Is there a point to all this?” Loki had to ask, after about fifteen minutes of Peter regaling him with various terrifying incidents from his childhood.  
“Oh, yeah, of course—” He nodded earnestly. “—what I was getting at is that I’ve always liked dangerous things. Even though I’ve had my share of missteps and trip-ups and hurt myself quite a bit, I’ve been able to come through it all. Definitely with help from friends and family, too. I trust myself. I know what I’m getting into. I am just a kid, but it would be nice if you could trust me too.” A pause, a breath. “I know you’ve had your frostbites and your sparklers and a fair share of having to sweep up glass with your bare hands. Maybe not exactly how it happened to me. But it still hurt, like any of those things would. Some of them—most of them, well, they were still your fault. And you learned something from them, like I learned from my mistakes. So while I wish you would trust me more, I wish you would trust yourself more, too. The sins of the parents—er, in this case, I suppose it would be the sins of the...race?—are not the sins of the child. You have the power to be different. You have the power to be good.” A knowing smile, like a beautiful sunrise, was turned up in Loki’s direction, so warm he could nearly feel it on his skin. Peter opened his arms. “With great power comes great responsibility. But with great responsibility…” Loki, without even thinking, bowed deeply into one of his friend’s deeply cherished hugs. “...comes great love.”  
Somewhere, an Antarctic ice shelf thawed, shuddered, and broke free. Somewhere, a lady slipper floret grew into its wonderful pink shoe blossom. Somewhere, a howling wind stopped blowing, and the rains that had been roaring for so long finally moved on from the sallow and sunken ground, which had come together in its muddiness to love the sun that shone through the sky. And inside, Loki felt all these things at once. Memories sprung forward to him like beautiful arcs of light: his mother, telling him stories, sharing her knowledge, her ways of seidr; his brother, gold-hearted and cheerfully guiding him from whatever mischief he’d gotten into; Heimdall, allowing him to view the Bifrost from the guard’s post. Peter, too, was there. Loki could see him through streams of light—tears?—and thought him nothing short of a young god.  
It took Loki a while to realize he was crying. Peter made no mention of it, which was kind of him, a sweet thought to know he took the Norse god’s pride seriously. At some point, though, Loki pushed the boy away, fearing that his touch had frozen him and his pure hazel eyes solid from how quiet he was being.  
“You’re going to get hurt,” His voice wavered as much as the clear streams of tears glittering on his pale blue face. “I can’t… you can’t-”  
“But look!” Peter smiled up at him, completely unharmed. “No frostbite!”  
The shock was enough to still the tears pouring from his eyes. Amazement followed shortly thereafter. “How? How can this be?”  
“I dunno.” Peter’s cheerfulness seemed to fill the room like a radiant sunbeam. “But I’m completely fine. And hey, this is proof that you don’t kill everything you touch!”  
While the boy clapped victoriously, Loki stared in wonder at him, and at himself as well—for what magic could this be, with barely a drop of his seidr left? He looked down at his hands to be sure. Yes, they were still that sickly blue color. But then, how…  
Looking back up at Peter, Loki realized in a strangely sentimental way that right now, he felt stronger and more energetic than he had in the last few weeks. Perhaps it was a miracle. Perhaps it was a turning point of sorts. Perhaps Peter was secretly a magician or even a god himself (and if he were, Loki knew he would be the god of kindness). But this was a mystery, Loki decided, a pleasant mystery that could be solved another time. For now, he felt obligated to bask in the glowing presence of a true friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed my bit of feelsy writing for this month, ahaha! Leave some kudos and a comment if you did! Tell me what you liked, what you didn't, what I should change, what I should make better, what I should write next, etc etc etc! Hearing from you makes my day :) Take care and I'll see you soon! <3 <3 <3


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